listen to, but towards London, and the Cat and Salutation, and the New World.

During those December weeks at the "Salutation,"1 where Coleridge seems to have taken up his abode, he was joined in the evenings by "Charles Lamb of the India House." Here, as well as

"At the Sun,

The Dog or Triple Tun,"

in Herrick's and Ben Jonson's time, were held "lyric feasts," such as Lamb so loved to recall; over Bowles and over Burns there were rejoicings; and gyrating clouds of smoke,-partly of Oronooko, partly from the chimney,-for halo round the head of Coleridge, grown eloquent as a new Apollo over his "fourth or fifth jorum." See Lamb's Letters.

There is a time to laugh and a time to weep. Much of Coleridge's laughter of this year, buoyant as his nature was, was a Spartan cloak, that concealed wounds. There were, at this time, two Coleridges. The one that communed with his own heart, wrote the Monody on the Death of Chatterton, and Lines to a Friend, who died of a Frenzy Fever, induced by calumnious Reports. Consult the notes to those

poems.

Most of the sonnets in our first division were written at the Salutation Inn, and printed, about the same time, in the Morning Post. The poem, Religious Musings, which poor Bowles considered Coleridge's best, was probably commenced, but certainly not, as its title says, "written,”—on Christmas Eve, of this year. It must be the "unfinished poem,"

1 Salutation.] It is clear that the name of the Inn was usually thus abbreviated. See Lamb's Dedication of his "Works" to Coleridge, in 1818, where he speaks of "those old suppers at our old ********** Inn,when life was fresh and topics exhaustless.”

of the lines, headed To a Friend together with an unfinished Poem, (To Charles Lamb was the first title), which is dated "Dec. 1794."

The threshold of the New World was Bristol. Thither Southey1 conducted Coleridge from London, early in the year 1795. And now was matured that scheme, which Coleridge spoke of, long after, in The Friend, as 66 strange fancies, and as vain as strange," of founding a colony, on the principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,—a Pantisocracy. Whatever Coleridge afterwards may have fancied or stated, he had by no means seen, so early as 1793, "the vile mockery of the whole affair." The Dedication of The Fall of Robespierre, Sept. 1794,—see §3,-is it not signed "Yours fraternally?"

The banks of the Susquehana were selected for the settlement. We think the sneer is uncalled for that the poetic sound of the name decided Coleridge's choice 2 of a locality. It is easy to smile, now; but these young enthusiasts were by no means idiots. They were doubtless familiar with the story of the peaceful colony of Wyoming, on that river, desolated by the Indians in 1778. Campbell's poem, Gertrude of Wyoming (1809), introduces us to the same region.

Each emigrant was to provide himself with a wife. A ship was to be chartered, and lie in Bristol Port, till all needful implements of industry, and colonists,

1

Southey.]

Nov. 3, 1792. finally quitted

end of 1794.

Southey had been registered at Balliol,
He did not reside very regularly, and
Oxford,-funds failing him,-before the

2 Choice.] Coleridge, in fact, writes to Southey, in 1794, from London, on his way to Cambridge for the last time, of a young man, who recommended the Susquehana, "from its excessive beauty, and its security from hostile Indians," and bisons, which were "quite backwards."

wives, mothers-in-law, and other chattels,-were aboard; then they were to

"Spread the canvas to the gale,"

for the "undivided dale" of "peaceful freedom," where Coleridge trusted to see around him, in his declining years, a thriving and contented population, which should venerate him," S. T. C.",—as their father and chief.

Strange fancies, and as vain as strange"! After all, there was nothing so very absurd in the scheme. Such have succeeded before, if Brook Farm did not. The poets contrived to seduce to their views a goodly list of emigrants; they even had hopes that "The Doctor,"-that is, Doctor Priestley, would join them. Lovell,-also a poet, —was already safely married; Coleridge chose Sarah, Southey, Edith Fricker ;—there was no difficulty in finding the wives; except in the case of poor Burnet,—another University student, also at one time destined for holy orders,—who made election of Martha Fricker. She unhesitatingly rejected him. She did not choose, she said, to be made a wife in a hurry.'

So far, good. But from lack of funds the scheme remained in abeyance.

Coleridge and Southey,-for one must live,2

1 Hurry.] Nor was she. She died a maid, fifty-five years later, at the age of seventy-three,-as did her younger sister, Eliza, in 1868, at the age of ninety ;-the two having, long before, honourably achieved a competency by their own exertions.

2 Live.] Gillman says that Coleridge and Southey had deliberately decided on literature, as a profession. The statement is simply ridiculous. So far as anything had been decided, at this time, Southey had decided for the law, Coleridge-for the Susquehana and Sarah Fricker.

L

2

proceeded to give lectures,' on History, and Religion, and the Hair Powder Tax, and other subjects. They lodged in the same house; they were in the same predicament with respect to influential relatives, as well as abandoned professions; and neither had any other resource3 than literature, for the moment. Of this lecturing Southey writes, in 1797, -"I went to Bristol to Coleridge, and supported myself, and almost him, I may say, for what my labours earned were as four to one." We let the remark pass, especially as it is probably true.

4

Coleridge published, before the close of the year, the substance of some of these lectures, in two pamphlets, Conciones ad Populum, or Addresses to the People, and The Plot Discovered, or an Address to the People. The chief matter of them was em

bodied in his later works.

Poetry, meanwhile, was not forgotten. To the second Book of Southey's Joan of Arc, a portion of the "labours" above mentioned (which did not,

a

1 Lectures.] They had previously contemplated magazine on a new plan," to be called The Provincial Magazine.-Southey's Life and Correspondence, vol. i., p. 231; 1849.

Professions.] Southey writes, in 1806, "If I regret anything in my own life, it is that I could not take orders, for of all ways of life that would have best accorded with my nature."

3 Resource.] Wordsworth was, for the present, in just the same case. It is curious that each of the three was rescued from want by the same means,—an annuity, unexpectedly provided by a friend.

Went.] The reader knows how far this statement is accurate. However, to have said, "I took Coleridge to Bristol," would have weakened the effect of it.

Joan of Arc.] This epic had been written in 1793. It was to have been published by subscription. Cottle presented copies to the subscribers, besides paying for the copyright. They did not number fifty.

1

3.

however, reach the public before 1796), Coleridge contributed some four hundred lines. See They were, in the main, the same as his poem, The Destiny of Nations. His own literary leanings made the Bristol Publisher, Cottle, a willing patron of "these two extraordinary young men.' He aided Southey at this time by purchasing the copyright of a volume of poems, for £30, as well as that of Joan of Arc, for which he paid the £50 in advance, though not all at once. A little while before, for the copyright of a volume of verse, of which but a small part was as yet written, he had advanced £30 to Coleridge. The volume progressed but slowly.

That the colony might be well in train, Coleridge now married. Cottle had offered him a guinea and

1 These, &c.] Wordsworth, in a letter, quoted, from hearsay, by Gillman (p. 74), is represented as stating,— "To-morrow I am going to Bristol, to see those two extraordinary young men, Southey and Coleridge." Wordsworth settled at Racedown, in Dorset, with his sister, in 1795. He may have gone to "see," or hear, the lecturers; but the evidence is against any acquaintance having been formed so early.

2 He paid.] Cottle did not lose by his generosity. Southey says, in a letter, Jan. 24, 1800,-" The copyright of my Joan of Arc, and the first volume of poems (excluding what had been given for the editions on sale), was sold a few months ago for £370: the previous profits had not been less than £250. I gained by both £138 12s."

Cottle seems, later on, to have been uneasy on this subject. Southey writes, in 1808,-"What you say of my copyrights affected me very much. Dear Cottle, set your heart at rest on that subject. It ought to be at rest. These were yours, fairly bought, and fairly sold. You bought them on the chance, &c. &c." "The very

money with which I bought my wedding-ring," and so on. "There does not live that man upon earth whom I remember with more gratitude and more affection." The letter is the finest and noblest of Southey's that we remember.